


(mis)adventures in babysitting

by thestarsarewinning



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Family Bonding, I don't know when but imagine after Gwen's wedding but without zombie owen, Jack's angsty backstory alert, M/M, Pre-Series 03: Children of Earth (Torchwood), also trying to hide jack from them, offscreen character death - it's not even anyone important just mentioning as a warning just in case, that's right imagine if Ianto knew about Alice, this is just 12k words of Ianto spending time with his nephew and niece?, this is set weirdly series two like, this is the nice things the show never gave us
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:16:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28875558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestarsarewinning/pseuds/thestarsarewinning
Summary: Before Ianto can overthink much more, or do something stupid, like leave Jack alone with his niece and nephew again and pretend none of them are sitting in his kitchen, David finally stops the steady stream of antagonism he’d been levelling at Mica and asks, “Where’s Mum? When's she coming back? Dad was s’posed to take me to play footy in the park today, is he still going to? Why did they leave us with you?”“Um-” Ianto desperately wishes he had more coffee- “Right."or, in the middle of a Davies' family emergency, Ianto is left to babysit
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones, Johnny Davies/Rhiannon Davies, Rhiannon Davies & Ianto Jones
Comments: 9
Kudos: 76





	(mis)adventures in babysitting

**Author's Note:**

> i quite literally started writing this back in the first lockdown last march, and it's taken me this long to finish it, or at least get this to a point where i'm finally willing to call it finished.
> 
> as obvious, i have no right to anything, i'm just borrowing a few things to play house

When Johnny’s mobile rings at four in the morning, Rhiannon hides her face in her pillow and kicks him until he’s awake and reaching blindly for the damn thing in a desperate attempt to silence it. 

She pulls the duvet over her head, redoubling her efforts to actually sleep and pretend like she won’t be awake in two hours time with David and Mica, when he holds it up, the bright screen almost blinding in the dark of their room, but instead of the disgruntled sigh she’s expecting, he shifts and answers it with a confused, “‘lo?”

Before she can fall back to sleep, Johnny bolts upright, dragging the duvet back as he gets out of bed, and the cold forces Rhiannon awake completely, though the protest she’s about to make dies when she sees the look on his face. He ignores her, ‘What-what’s happened?’, and grabs the jeans he’s left lying on their bedroom floor for the past three days.   
  
The urgency in his voice as he says, “Just, hang on, Mum. I’ll be right there- Glangwili Hospital, got it. Dad- Dad’s gonna be fine.” makes her get up too, search for the jumper she’d struggled out of three hours ago and stumble into jeans of her own. 

Rhiannon doesn’t bother turning the lights on as she follows, and she catches up with Johnny in the kitchen - actually catching him swallowing orange juice straight from the carton, wearing one shoe and clutching his car keys - and she reaches out, tugging on the exposed label of his inside out t-shirt. 

“Love,” she begins, though she doesn’t really need to ask. Just Johnny’s side of the phone call has horrible anxiety for her father-in-law creeping into her stomach, and there’s only one reason anyone calls at four am from a hospital, and when Johnny opens his mouth only to close it again, running a hand blearily through his hair, she shakes her head. “I’m coming with you, don’t be daft. Just- Let me call someone to watch the kids.”

Johnny smiles then, almost, and sags against the fridge, still trying to frame the words, even as unnecessary as it is. “Mum- She. She said that. Dad’s not doing good, Rhi.”

She gathers him into her arms then and takes the opportunity to replace the orange juice in the fridge, and this bit is easy, or should be. It’s what couples do, being there for each other, and they’ve unfortunately been does this road before, when her mum’s cancer returned. 

It should be easy, being there for her husband. It is easy enough to find his other shoe, grab their coats and her handbag and make coffee into travel mugs, and pry the keys from his hand as he’s in no state to drive right now, but there is one thing more important than her husband and mother-in-law right now, and that’s her children, mercifully still asleep. Unfortunately, finding a sitter at four am on a Saturday in Cardiff is not as easy as she might have hoped. 

“Tracy’s not answering, my mum’s too far away and next door-“

“Never again,” Johnny finishes for her, his t-shirt now the right way out, and he scrubs a hand over his face. “I can call Mum back, tell her we’ll be later. My sister should be on her way there from Penarth, we can wait.”

“No,” Rhiannon knows that’s not an option, because Johnny’s sister never has gotten along with their mum and now won’t be any better, and even if it was, she knows Johnny wants to be there and she wants to be there herself. “We still haven’t tried Ianto.“

“Your brother?”

Johnny’s raised eyebrow acknowledges what both of them are thinking - her brother is never in, works all hours and never answers his phone. The kids haven’t even seen him once since he moved back from London. She’s determined, though, and pours the water from the boiled kettle into the travel mugs as she calls him. 

For once, he actually answers, even if Ianto doesn’t exactly sound awake as he mumbles, “Rhi? It’s four...call you back, okay?”

He hangs up before she can get a word in, but it’s good enough. He’s home, and his flat is actually on their way out of Cardiff. 

Five minutes later, she and Johnny are carrying still asleep children out of the flat, in pyjama’s and blankets, though Rhiannon has remembered to grab some clothes for them, shoving t-shirts and leggings and what she thinks are David’s corduroy trousers — the only clean trousers he has in his wardrobe — into a Tesco carrier bag, as Johnny slides Mica into her car seat and shushes David as he stirs. 

Getting both children back out of the car and up the stairs to Ianto’s flat is a different challenge, and Rhiannon wishes again Ianto wasn’t such a twat sometimes and would just give her a spare key to make times like this easier, but they manage, and she knocks on his front door, too loudly for the hour but she’s juggling Mica and the clothes bag and would, in an ideal world, be giving Johnny’s hand a reassuring squeeze. 

She has to knock again before the front door opens and her baby brother appears, shirtless but wearing pyjama trousers, hair a sleep-matted mess and glaring blearily, though when Ianto realises it’s her, the glare becomes rather more confused. “Rhi? Johnny. What?”

Rhiannon takes advantage of his confusion and slides Mica into her brother’s arms and he automatically takes her before frowning again, like he, quite rightfully, can’t comprehend why his sister is at his door at half four in the morning playing ding-dong-ditch with her children. David, thankfully, is awake and wriggles free from Johnny’s arms to step into Ianto’s flat, still clutching the duvet he’d been put into the car with. 

“Sorry,” Rhiannon shrugs, painfully aware of the time and the drive she and Johnny have ahead of them, “But it’s an emergency. Johnny’s dad, we’ve got to go. I’ll call from the road, though, explain everything later.”

She takes a step back, reaching for Johnny’s hand as Ianto nods slowly. 

“Right, okay. Of course, I- When do you think-“ His question gets cut off by a yawn, and then Rhiannon and Johnny are retreating, already out of sight from his front door, leaving Ianto stood in the doorway, awkwardly holding his niece while his nephew stares sleepily up at him. 

He supposes he should be grateful that his sister vanished the way she did when Jack emerges from his bedroom, padding along the hallway only to take in the tableau before him and ask, “Ianto? What’s going on?”

**

For thirty-seconds, when Ianto wakes, he’s almost relaxed. 

It’s a Saturday morning, a rare Saturday that he actually has off — practically unheard of for Torchwood — and he managed to pry Jack out of the Hub with him last night, meaning forty-eight hours of no work and Jack stretch out ahead of him. 

Jack. Forty-eight-hours. No — Rift willing — interruptions. 

The momentary feeling that everything might just be working out in his favour for once dies, however, when he realises Jack’s side of the bed is empty. Given how cold the mattress is, he’s been gone for a while. 

Combined with the fact that it’s not even seven yet — technically still a lie in, by Torchwood’s standards, but unacceptable nevertheless — and the glorious weekend Ianto had planned flames out of existence, exacerbated by the high-pitched, childish voices he can hear just outside his bedroom door. 

The events of four am hit him like a freight train: both the memory of Jack pinning him against the wardrobe and giving him possibly the best blowjob of his life; and Rhiannon, appearing on his doorstep an hour later as if dropped there by the Rift, leaving him with the niece and nephew he hasn’t seen in actual, literal years. 

There better be a very good answer for that, Ianto thinks somewhat viciously as he forces himself out of bed, reaching for the t-shirt he hadn’t remembered three hours ago. 

David and Mica aren’t waiting right outside his door like he’d suspected, but are in fact sat at his kitchen table, bickering loudly. Too loudly, really, for it being barely seven. 

Jack- 

Jack is sat at the table with them, listening to their bickering and smirking, a mug of coffee in front of him. Ianto makes a beeline for it, though Jack holds the mug out to him, offering before Ianto can steal it. “Good morning.” 

It takes a second for Ianto to realise that he’s relieved that Jack’s still here, and another for him to work on not letting his relief creep into his voice. “Mhm. Morning.”

He’d figured Jack would have taken one look at the scene and escaped back to the hub, using the excuse of a weevil sighting or Rift alert, though that’s unfair and Ianto knows it. He hasn’t left yet, not even when he’d found Ianto struggling to keep his hold on Mica and lock the front door and comprehend what Rhiannon had just done. 

Really, Jack has been exceptionally good about this. For what Ianto presumes is some kind of universe-altering first, Jack had pulled on underwear and stolen the soft cotton shorts Ianto sometimes sleeps in before wandering out to see if aliens were somehow at Ianto’s door, and he’d accepted Ianto’s very confused, ‘Family emergency,’ as all the explanation needed before reaching past him and David to lock the front door.

Jack had taken Mica’s weight from him then, holding her with an ease Ianto hadn’t quite managed, and asked, “The kids have names, or?”

Ianto had nodded once, then realised that words might be necessary. David was yawning and swaying on his feet, and Ianto caught him and the bundle of blankets he was still clutching, steadying him by the shoulders and trying not to be surprised by the fact that David was no longer the chubby three-year-old he had been when Ianto had left for London. “This is David, Jack. And Mica.” 

Between the two of them, they’d gotten David and Mica settled in his spare room, navigating the piles of boxes that Ianto had never bothered to unpack, and it was then that it occurred to Ianto that he might have to explain who Jack was. To David and Mica, and inevitably to Rhiannon. 

That thought had sent him stumbling into one of the stacks of boxes, too busy wondering if he could pass this off as a late-night work thing that stretched into the weekend or if his sister would see right through it, only to have Jack catch him before he could do any damage either to himself or the precarious system he’d created for ignoring most of the possessions he’d brought back from London. 

Given all of that, Ianto knows how unfair his surprise at seeing Jack is, even if he’s still waiting for Jack to stand and grab his coat from its hook and say, “Now you’re awake, I’ve gotta dash. Got a sighting of- You know, down by Hemingway Road. I’ll call Owen on the way.”

He doesn’t, though. 

Jack’s still sitting there, fully smiling now as he watches Ianto finish his coffee, and Ianto has to fight the impulse to lean in and kiss him, and he knows Jack can read it on his face. 

The momentary relief — at Jack being there, at the caffeine hitting his veins — dies when Ianto realises he has no idea what to do, or even to say. He’s vaguely aware of the fact that Mica might not even know him; the last time he really saw her, he was nineteen and running off to London and she was a quiet lump of blankets Rhiannon had made him hold when he went round for tea before he left. 

He’d called, of course, and there had been attempts at Christmas presents, and he’d tried to have tea with Rhiannon and his mum when he moved back, but he hadn’t wanted to leave Lisa alone for too long. 

Thankfully, before Ianto can overthink much more, or do something stupid, like leave Jack alone with his niece and nephew again and pretend none of them are sitting in his kitchen, David finally stops the steady stream of antagonism he’d been levelling at Mica — ‘You’re so stupid, the green power ranger is the worst one, you can’t like him,’ — and asks, “Where’s Mum? When's she coming back? Dad was s’posed to take me to play footy in the park today, is he still going to? Why did they leave us with you?” 

“Um-” Ianto desperately wishes he had more coffee- “Right. Your mum and dad- There’s a bit of an emergency, nothing to worry you two about, I’m sure, but they were needed. I will call her, though, and-“

“Can I still play football?” 

“I don’t know, sorry, we- I’ll. Maybe.” Ianto scrubs a hand over his face and looks wistfully over at the coffeemaker. Before he can even think about making coffee, Mica looks up at him and, Christ, she looks so much like Rhiannon that he actually has to blink. “Uncle Ianto? When can we have breakfast?” 

Jack, previously quiet and smirking in a way which suggests he’s rather enjoying seeing Ianto completely at a loss, gives Ianto a meaningful look that Ianto deciphers to be an attempt at pointing out how unlikely it is that there will be any kind of breakfast any time soon. 

He’s right - Ianto’s kitchen is bare; the fridge has beer and, if he’s lucky, maybe an inch left in the pint of milk he’d bought on Wednesday, and the rest of his cupboards are similar. He doesn’t even keep bread in anymore, too fed up of buying it only to have to bin it, untouched, a week later. 

Let it never be said, however, that Jack Harkness doesn’t have his uses. “I can go buy some actual food - you’re out of milk, too. Bring it back here, give you time to get things… sorted?” 

The careful look on Jack’s face makes something in Ianto’s chest tighten, but he nods anyway. 

David jumps up in his seat. “Can we have Coco Pops? Mum never lets us have them, please? Please?” 

The smile on Jack’s face is dangerous, and Ianto knows almost nothing about children - human children anyway, Nostrovites are a different matter - but he’s fairly certain that this is not a good idea. However- “Sure, why not? Sugar and E-numbers. Anything else?” 

The last question is directed at Ianto and he follows Jack out to the hallway, shaking his head. “Don’t think so?” 

He watches Jack pull his coat on and wonders idly if he’d had actually managed to sleep after they’d sorted out David and Mica, or if he was already dressed and so put together because he’d been awake ever since. Something in Ianto feels cheated; early morning, sleep rumpled Jack is something extraordinary, and Ianto should have had that Jack to himself, in his bed, for as long as the Rift and Jack’s inability to stay in one place for too long would allow. 

Glancing behind them to make sure David and Mica are still in the kitchen, Ianto catches the collar of Jack’s coat and kisses him, more restrained than he’d like, but it’s at least something and it makes Jack grin and kiss him back far less chastely. 

Abruptly, a wail from his kitchen makes Ianto jump back, and he tries his hardest not to swear as he hears Mica bawl, “I hate you, I want Mummy. I want to go ho-ome.” 

When her wailing only gets louder, Ianto rests his head against Jack’s shoulder and tries not to ask to go with him. Jack looks past him to the kitchen and seems to be trying not to laugh as he promises, “I’ll be quick.” 

**

Working at Torchwood means Ianto has said a lot of weird, truly questionable things. He’s always regretfully held, ‘lots of thing you can do with a stopwatch,’ to be at the top of that list, despite its success, though, clutching his phone too tightly and actually afraid to go back into his own kitchen, he thinks, somewhat childishly, he might finally have beaten it. 

“Rhiannon? Thank God-“ He starts, after she finally picks up the third call he’s tried to make, and he bites back the ‘what the fuck’ he’s been dying to ask dies when he hears what might be a sob. “Rhi?”

“Yes, yes, I’m here,” Rhiannon manages, sniffing loudly, and Ianto resists the urge to hold the phone away from his ear. “How are the kids?”

“The kids are fine, yeah, they’re in the kitchen- Hang on, no, what do you mean, how are the kids? Where are you, Rhi? What’s going on? Why are David and Mica in my kitchen at eight on a Saturday?” 

“It’s an emergency, okay? Johnny’s dad, he’s had a stroke.” 

Ianto feels very small then, and keeps his gaze on his hall carpet as Rhiannon says, “You’re my brother, idiot, and it’s an emergency, we thought you’d be okay with it. And- It’s not looking- It’s not good. How are David and Mica? Don’t say anything to them, will you?” 

He could do with vacuuming more often, he thinks, and then realises that Rhiannon might require an answer. “I won’t. Don’t worry, they’re fine, really. We’re just about to have breakfast, then I’ll- What should I- Do they have like, I don’t know, clubs or anything to go to?”

“It’s a Saturday, Ianto.” 

When he doesn’t say anything, Rhiannon sighs loudly and, even over the phone Ianto knows she’s making the same odd, judgmental frown she’d worn when he’d shown up late to Christmas only to have to leave early. Eventually, after what feels like a lifetime but can’t have been, not when Mica can still be heard sobbing in his kitchen, Rhiannon says, “Just take them to the park- Mica and I normally go to the shops, just do something normal, alright?”

Normal. Ianto hasn’t had a normal Saturday since he came back to Cardiff. 

“I can do that. When- When are you going to be back? Just so I can tell them?” 

The silence lasts a lot longer and Ianto bites his lip. Any longer than the weekend and Torchwood would get in the way for sure, and that’s without the ever-present risk of the Rhotepsian’s deciding Sunday would be a good day to land a spaceship in Bute park. “I dunno, really. Johnny wants to stay- I want to stay, but. Tomorrow?”

“Right.” Ianto can do this, surely. It’s just a weekend with his niece and nephew. Normal people manage that all the time. It’s as he’s about to hang up that he sort of notices that he’s failed to be a good brother about all of this, forgetting the basic platitudes he’s sure people manage, and he asks, “How are you doing, Rhi? You and Johnny…you doing alright?” 

“It’s- It’s shit, but,” Rhiannon makes a sound sort of like a shrug, and Ianto can hear her soften ever so slightly as she says, “Just- Have a good time with them, yeah? Be fun Uncle Ianto, too many sweets and ice cream.”

“I’m sure you’ll regret that later, but will do. Maybe introduce them to horror films, let David drive,” That earns him a stifled laugh, and Ianto almost smiles. “Give Johnny my best, yeah? Tell him-“ 

He trails off then, unsure of what he’s supposed to say next but Rhiannon seems to understand because she sniffs again. “Will do. I’ll call later, talk to Mica and David then. Give them my love.” 

When she hangs up, Ianto snaps his phone shut and closes his eyes, taking a deep breath before he turns to face his kitchen and the chaos undoubtedly awaiting him. 

**

Chaos is a mild term for what he walks in on. 

Mica is still sobbing and snotty, though she’s clutching a wad of kitchen roll, pulled straight from the holder, having knocked over last night’s washing up still drying on the side. David - clearly the culprit and cause - is out of his seat, perched next to Mica instead and he looks up when Ianto enters, though he doesn’t shut up quickly enough, and Ianto is treated to a classic line from his own childhood. 

“You’re fine, really, and look- You can hit me back, just don’t tell.”

It’s very tempting for Ianto to walk right back out of the kitchen but he steels himself, fixing the glass lying precariously on the worktop and tearing off the kitchen roll before anything else can be knocked over. Another deep breath and he descends on David and Mica. “No one is hitting anyone else, thank you. Not happening.” 

David jumps back, opening his mouth to protest, “We- I. We weren’t doing anything!”

“I’m sure you weren’t,” Ianto manages. Mica sniffs, her forehead creasing and Ianto tries not to shudder at the thought of more tears. He ducks down to look her over and the red pinch marks on her arm give David away instantly, though Mica doesn’t so much as clamour when he glances between the two of them. 

It’s almost admirable, and a gesture Ianto remembers all too well - when he was kid and he and Rhi used to fight, their dad simply punished whoever tried to tell on the other. There’s really no point in rocking the boat, Ianto reasons, pasting on a smile as he says, “Spoke to your mum, you two. She said she’ll be back tomorrow, with Johnny- With your dad. It’s nothing really, just adult stuff, so until then, you’re stuck with me.” 

“What about Jack?” David asks, and Ianto straightens up instantly. 

“What do you mean, what about Jack?” 

David isn’t actually looking at him, playing with the glass in front of him, tipping the water further up the side of the glass, and doesn’t seem to notice that Ianto’s voice has risen an octave. The water spills over the top of the glass onto his pyjamas as he shrugs. “He said he was coming back, so are we spending this weekend with you and Jack?”

“Well- Um- Right. I don’t know, really. Do you like Jack? What did he say to you, why he was here?” Ianto wonders about that for himself as he grabs more kitchen roll for David, and works on forcing himself to sound more relaxed as he asks. 

Jack had stayed, before. And he said he was going to Tesco. And he can’t have told Mica and David anything. Jack wouldn’t have said- He wouldn’t. They don’t have a label, not that there’s really one to put on…them, even after the mess that was the mission at Serenity Plaza. 

Mica pipes up before David can, not that he seems to care about the questions Ianto’s asked, consumed with pouring the water from his glass into Mica’s and back as he is. “Jack’s nice. He said you work together, Uncle Ianto, at the tourism place Mummy said you work for.” 

The tension bleeds out of Ianto then and he nods slowly. “That’s right, yeah. We work together-“ 

He pauses to move the water glasses out of David’s reach when there’s a second spillage and then tries to keep his tone light as he asks, “Would you mind if Jack stayed too?” 

Mica shrugs then, her pyjama sleeves falling back down her arms, and David gives him a bored look. “Can we watch TV?” 

**

TV works so successfully as a distraction that Ianto is three points into a proposal as to why they should put TV in the cells for the Weevils and is so distracted by the list that he almost doesn’t hear Jack return. 

Almost, because Jack is incapable of being quiet, even over the blare of whatever cartoon Mica had picked that had allowed Ianto to tidy the kitchen, shower, and make coffee whilst she and David were distracted.

Jack appears shopping first, and he hands the milk over before he says anything, smiling at the grateful noise Ianto makes before doctoring his coffee. He’s only being slightly sarcastic when he breathes, “My hero.” 

The laugh he earns makes him smile back at Jack and he checks past Jack to make sure Mica and David are still safely ensconced in his living room before kissing Jack hello. His hesitation must not be lost on Jack because he doesn’t linger, though the tension in his jaw says he understands and Jack safely steps over to the other side of the kitchen. “Tesco was a nightmare, by the way. God, I always forget just how much I hate supermarkets and then, ugh.” 

The shopping bag he’d dropped onto the table yields cereal of the chocolate and sugar variety, croissants, orange juice and snacks, and Ianto tosses the packet of croissants over to Jack. “Worth it, though. Besides, a supermarket’s hardly the worst Cardiff has to offer.” 

“I’d take the Rift any day.” Jack’s smile is back and he slings his coat over the back of a kitchen chair, despite the hooks by the front door, and he ignores the slight twitch of Ianto’s left eyebrow. He crosses his arms, mimicking Ianto’s expression, though the game ends when David appears in the doorway. “Can we have breakfast now Jack’s back? I want cereal.”

“Please,” Mica appears behind him, though the display of manners is more aimed at David than Ianto or Jack, and David tries to elbow her. Before he actually does and Mica can start to cry again, Ianto produces the box Jack had brought back and David crows triumphantly. “Mum never lets us have these.” 

“God knows why,” Ianto mutters too quietly for David to hear as he reaches for two bowls from the cabinet behind Jack, and then he has to pry the box from away David before he starts eating the cereal by the handful. It sounds kind of vile - Coco Rocks, in the style of the Coco Pops Ianto still buys for himself, though these look like miniature boulders and he shudders at the thought of how much sugar there is. Fun uncles shouldn’t care about that, he thinks, but usually, he’s certain, they aren’t around when the sugar wears off. 

It’s too late, though, and Ianto concedes rather quickly when Mica asks if she can eat in front of the TV, and David follows, carrying a precariously full bowl without bothering with a spoon. 

Before Ianto can despair about the inevitable stains on his carpet, Jack wafts a plate with a croissant under his nose and he takes it gratefully, dropping into a chair and trying to resist the urge to rest his head on the table. When Jack sits next to him, he tries for an apologetic look but he’s afraid it comes across more resigned. 

“Sorry this isn’t the weekend we planned,” he offers, and it’s far too much of a weight of his shoulders when Jack waves him off. 

“It happens. One weekend it’s-” A quick check that they don’t have an audience and then Jack smiles- “Weevils, and the next it’s your sister. This is just as great, really.” 

“Weevils at least come with a warning.” The complaint is mostly a front, and Ianto knows that Jack knows that, but saying it makes him, for one uncharitable moment, feel slightly better. It also makes Jack laugh, and that’s worth it in itself. 

“What’s the deal with your sister? Is this an all weekend thing, or sooner, or are we going to have to make do without you on Monday?” Jack reaches across to steal Ianto’s coffee, and Ianto retaliates by moving the marmalade further out of Jack’s reach, spreading the preserve across another croissant before he answers. “Hopefully, they’ll be back tomorrow. Depends how Johnny’s dad does. Means we- I’ve just got to occupy them today and tomorrow.”

“We,” Jack says slow and deliberate, with one eyebrow raised, “Better think of something, I guess, or they’ll go home having only watched TV and I can’t imagine that’s something their parents allow.” 

The weight of Jack’s words leave Ianto feeling unsteady for a second, though he recovers and hides behind his reclaimed coffee before he nods. “Rhi won’t be thrilled if I don’t think of something. I’m not going to the shops, though.”

Jack pulls a face at that, attacking another croissant before he suggests, “The park? Then, I don’t know, Ice cream? Out for dinner?” 

Ianto relinquishes his coffee in admiration. “A plan if I ever heard one.” 

**

Ianto has never been to the park on a Saturday for non-Torchwood reasons. Not since he was a kid, and that doesn’t count, because he found it so boring he and his mates starting hanging around the town centre, and then that inevitably led to his ill-fated shoplifting attempts. 

It’s weird, not running around in the dark after Weevils or a Blowfish or a Rhotepsian delegation. It would almost be nice, but the park is full of families and children running around and dogs and cyclists despite the grey, February day. 

Jack sits next to him, and Ianto knows by now the anachronism of Jack, and he knows other people see it too, or at least see a man dressed sixty-years behind the times, but he’s long since stopped caring what other people think. Mica and David, however, not so much. 

They’d gotten maybe five steps from Ianto’s flat — not even reaching the stairwell — and Mica had asked, “Why’s Jack got a funny coat?” 

David had chimed in, “Yeah, you look like a solider, like the people they brought into school to pretend. Do you do that? Is that your job?” 

“I’ve just had it a long time.” Jack had tossed Ianto’s flat keys to him and they’d shared a look — the awkward kind, the kind Ianto’s never shared with anyone since Lisa and the one awful trip to her sister’s to meet their new daughter, who, no sooner after she’d been placed in Ianto’s arms, had thrown up all over him — before Jack declared, “Last one down the stairs doesn’t get an ice cream later.”

It had shut Mica and David up then, but once they’d gotten to the park, they’d started the questions again until Ianto sent them over to the swings with the promise of pushing Mica in a moment. 

Jack’s face is unreadable, however, and Ianto feels the urge, for once, to break the silence between them, and he tries to keep his tone light as he says, “Mica’s got a point, you know. That coat is ridiculous. Is it magic? Is that the secret here?”

It works well enough that Jack snorts, shaking his head and Ianto thinks he might be seeing a flicker of a smile. He keeps teasing, well aware that Jack sees right through him, knows how he really feels about the coat, something Ianto has never managed to be subtle enough about, and his own smile makes Jack work harder at his own. “It’s not, but I might try that on Gwen. What are the odds she’d believe it?” 

“Fairly high,” Ianto has to repress the urge to drop a ‘sir’ into the conversation, but he shifts a little closer to Jack along the bench and knocks one of his knees again Jack’s. “As long as you told her without Owen around. Otherwise you’d stand no chance.” 

“He would spoil it, wouldn’t he? Hasn’t got the face for a joke.” The amusement in Jack’s voice lingers and he presses his leg against Ianto’s whilst he has the opportunity, and it’s the sight of Mica squawking inaudibly at her brother that makes Jack say, “I don’t mind the questions, she’s cute.”

He doesn’t look at Ianto as he continues, “Reminds me of my own kid, when she was that age.”

Alice hadn’t been blonde, but she’d been cute as a button and just as inquisitive, and Jack lets himself dwell on the memory for a while longer before he dares a glance at Ianto. 

It’s a reminder that he’s constantly underestimating Ianto — a habit he’s tried to break, only to be continually surprised — that Ianto’s expression hasn’t changed, that he hasn’t pulled away from Jack at all, despite the continued nervousness he shows when it’s just _them_ together in public, and Jack exhales slowly. 

Maybe it’s just that this isn’t the place for a scene, not that Ianto makes many of them, or maybe it’s that he’s genuinely aware of who Jack is, or at least as much as he can be when Jack’s spent the better part of a century hiding who he has been. Whatever it is, Ianto bumps his leg against Jack’s again and says, “Thought you looked at home here.”

He juts his chin at their surroundings, the busy park and harried parents, and Jack knows it’s an attempt at humour, and a welcome one at that, but he’s not quite capable of letting the moment of honesty go. “Not so much. This is nice, though. Maybe should have done more of it.”

“Speak for yourself. Think I might be getting frostbite,” Ianto huffs, and Jack looks over at him properly, dressed as he is in shabby jeans, a t-shirt Jack has never seen before, and a thin jacket rather than the proper coat he wears to the Hub. “This bench is bloody uncomfortable, too.” 

Jack has to laugh at his grumbling then, and he lets himself fall back into their usual back and forth, “So welsh. Typical. Always, always something to complain about.”

“Not all of us have _magic_ coats, Jack.” 

Whatever else Jack might have said gets interrupted by David, who ambles up to them wearing an expression that says he wants something. 

He does, and his request that they push him and Mica on the swings is accompanied by an impressive pout and a piercingly loud, “Pleeeease, Uncle Ianto.” 

Ianto sighs loudly, too loudly to be serious, and stands, glaring at Jack as he follows David until he joins them. He does, and they push Mica and David on the swings, silently daring each other into an unspoken competition to see who can push their respective swing higher.

As he catches sight of Jack’s familiar quirked smile, Ianto realises he’s smiling too. 

**

He’s not smiling by the time they corral Mica and David back into his flat after dinner. 

Ianto knows he was right earlier, when he thought fun uncles never have to deal with the fallout of too much sugar and excitement, and the hair trigger Mica and David seem to be walking on snaps when Mica can’t get her shoes off by herself and Ianto thinks for one dark moment that he liked having a niece better when he was still in London and had only ever seen the photos Rhiannon had sent in the post. 

Jack, thankfully is the one closest to Mica and Ianto makes a snap decision to usher David into the kitchen and leave Jack alone with Mica. He can hear Jack mutter, “Coward,” as they go, but there’s months of evidence to the contrary, so Ianto lets it lie, helping David out of his coat and abandoning it on the back of a kitchen chair. 

David seems mostly unbothered Mica’s third bout of tears of the day and Ianto’s suspicion that this is a somewhat common occurrence at home grows when David only sighs at the noise. 

“Can I have a biscuit?” David asks, and Ianto can’t help himself when he says, “You’ve literally just had dinner and a pudding, you cannot need a biscuit.” 

He sounds like his dad, and that’s enough to make him reconsider, reaching for the cupboard he’d thrown the shopping into earlier before David has even muttered, “No, but I want one.” 

David manages to eat two custard creams and reaches for a third, and Ianto has to wonder how, seriously how, because he and Jack had taken the two of them to McDonalds for lunch, then bought them ice cream before they’d gone to Pizza Express for tea at David’s request. None of that seemed to be slowing David down, however, and, for the sake of science or perhaps just the sheer novelty of the matter, Ianto pushes the biscuit packet closer, letting him take another. 

Mica’s wails can still be heard, and David wrinkles his nose, spraying crumbs everywhere. “She never cries like this at home, she’s such a baby.” 

It’s both a relief and not to hear; Ianto can’t imagine being permanently responsible for a child as liable to cry at the drop of a hat as Mica seems, but it also means that it’s him, him and Jack, that’s the cause and that’s quite the punch to the gut until he realises that it’s maybe not personally him, but the absence of Rhiannon. 

He pulls out his mobile, dialling Rhiannon for the fourth time today - the fourth time in practically as many months - and he doesn’t bother greeting her when she answers, instead poking his head out of the kitchen door to see Jack sat on the floor, Mica sobbing into his shirt, and holding the phone out. “It’s your mum, sweetheart. Do you want to talk to her?”

When Mica nods — at least he thinks it’s a nod, the short jerk of her chin hidden by her hair and the arm Jack has around her — he tosses the phone to Jack, who hands it over with a barely disguised look of relief. 

“Mummy,” Mica whimpers, and Ianto is grateful both for the fact that she begins to quieten and that it’s Jack’s shirt she presses her snotty face into. 

After five minutes of listening in on one side of a mostly sobbed conversation, Ianto gets his phone thrust back at him by Mica and he wipes snot off the keypad before he asks, “Rhi?”

His sister sounds tired, and Ianto has the grace to feel slightly guilty for inflicting her sobbing daughter on her without warning, but he doesn’t quite feel guilty enough to actually apologise, not sat on the floor as he is. When Rhiannon’s done calling him a bastard, she asks, “She’s stopped crying, yeah? She should calm down, you might just need to put her to bed, but- Look, if you really can’t manage, I could drive back now, Johnny can stay- His sister’s on her best behaviour and they’d understand-“

“Don’t- Don’t trouble yourself like that, really-“ Ianto pauses, covering the microphone with his hand and looking meaningfully at Jack as he says, “David’s eating biscuits in the kitchen, I imagine he’ll finish them all if someone doesn’t stop him.”

It’s enough for Jack to heave himself off the floor, setting Mica on her feet and leading her down the hall. She sniffs loudly as she steps over Ianto’s legs but she’s not actually crying, which is enough that Ianto can honestly answer Rhiannon, “She’s fine now, anyway. Missing you, but we- I can manage. I’ve got this, Rhi.”

His mistake seems to go unnoticed, and Rhiannon sighs when he offers to put David on too, if she’d like, which Ianto takes as a no. He gets that, he really does. “It’s been a long day, for you, and for them - you go and, and be there for Johnny or get a coffee, and I’ll see if the kids want to call you in the morning, yeah?”

Rhiannon hangs up, and he lets his head fall back against the wall with a thunk, exhaling slowly and counting to five before he stands, opening to the kitchen to a sight of similar carnage to this morning, only now Jack is an active participant, holding a stack of biscuits at least five deep. He makes deliberate eye contact with Ianto as he takes a bite, and both of them fight the urge to smile, even as Ianto rolls his eyes. 

He’s about to suggest that its bedtime and usher Mica and David into their pyjamas and away when he notices the clock on his microwave and realises the time.

 _Shit_. 

Seven o’clock is probably way too early to send Mica and David to bed, not when he’s supposed to be the fun uncle. 

Ianto wordlessly opens and closes his mouth, scrubbing a hand over his face before he shrugs, an unspoken fuck it clearly visible on his face as he joins the three of them at the table, reaching for the biscuit packet. 

**

They survive. Well, Ianto survives and Jack can survive anything, so Ianto’s not really sure it counts where he’s concerned, although there might have been five minutes where it looked like children could be the one thing in the universe to cause the end of the great Captain Jack Harkness. 

Biscuits had not been a smart idea. Sugar, extra sugar, after the shitload Mica and David had already had, had really not been a good idea. Jumping on his sofa had been an even shittier idea, but hindsight is really rather useless and there were no broken bones, so Ianto’s willing to overlook a broken mug, the leg snapped off his coffee table and the cracked TV remote.

What he can’t overlook is the awkward moment halfway through their eventual bedtime, nearly three hours after Ianto had officially had enough with the day, where Mica and David had asked, “Where’s Jack going to sleep?” 

Apparently, even children can look at Ianto’s flat and realise that there’s more people than beds. 

Jack had saved him by shrugging, his tone just a little too casual for anyone paying close enough attention as he’d said, “I don’t sleep.”

As answers go, it’s more suspicious than the truth would have been, but he says it as he’s making hot chocolate and Mica and David care far more about marshmallows than analysing his response, so they let it slide, and Ianto remembers that he does need to breathe. 

They corral David and Mica into the spare room eventually and ,when Ianto pokes his head around the door twenty minutes after their wittering stops, both of them are actually asleep. The sight of them is almost enough to make Ianto think that this weekend hasn’t been so bad, enough for him to maybe feel grateful for the surprise visit, though that kind of thought dies just a bit when he return to his own room, and to the sight of Jack. 

Jack, who’s presence here is still new enough that Ianto hasn’t quite become used to it, Jack who is within his reach, leaning against the pillows on what has become his side of Ianto’s bed, armour off for the moment but still in his undershirt and boxers - a concession Ianto knows he’s making for his sake, for the fact that a wall away are two annoyingly perceptive children. 

He lets Jack pull him into bed, stifles the laugh rising in his chest and kisses him - softly, and far more chastely than they ever manage normally - and he ignores the fact that Jack is already half-hard for the same reason that Jack, in another groundbreaking first, has worn clothes to bed. He still teases, though, pulling Jack a little too close, letting his knee slot between Jack’s legs, and he smothers a grin when Jack lets out a frustrated sigh, the hiss escaping between his teeth when Ianto’s hand wanders below the waistband of his underwear. 

Jack might have been telling Mica and David the truth, that he doesn’t sleep, but Ianto does and needs to, tired in a way even Torchwood hasn’t left him feeling in a long time, and it’s as he’s drifting off - after returning Jack’s sigh with an equally regretful one of his own, followed by a kiss he’d hoped conveyed enough explanation, apology and delayed promise - that he hears Jack ask, “Did you want to talk about it?”

A very small part of Ianto — the part still awake, the part still making lists of potential ways to pass tomorrow, the earliest times he might expect Rhiannon to return by, the usual weekend shit like ironing that he’s going to need to catch up on — is not surprised that Jack Harkness chooses now to offer up something resembling honestly. The other part, the part that has had maybe five hours sleep and spent more time with his niece and nephew in one day than he has in years, would like to kick Jack Harkness out of bed for choosing now of all times to let a real conversation, the kind they don’t normally have, happen. 

Another part wonders what ‘it’ means; if Jack wants to talk about the fact that Jack actually has a family, or that Jack has told him, or that, somewhere, there is a whole other human being with Captain Jack Harkness’ DNA walking around and the public has not been issued a health warning. 

“How old is she?” Ianto settles on asking, assuming Jack will have picked up his train of thought. 

Jack tenses and his voice goes tight in the way Ianto knows means he doesn’t think Ianto will like what he has to say. His hand, which had been stroking Ianto’s hair, stills and Jack sounds tired when he says, “Thirty-three.” 

There could be a repeat of the horrible moments they’ve shared between them, this could be Jack’s version of Lisa, this could be another horrible wound, another version of the moment Ianto had let Jack be taken by Mandy and The Saviour, but- It would be bullshit. 

He doesn’t care that Jack has secrets, that Jack has a family, a past. He does care a little bit that Jack wants to talk about this _right now_ , but that’s typical Jack, really. 

Jack considers it further testament to the fact that he really has no idea what goes on side Ianto’s head that Ianto doesn’t outwardly react other than to ask, “What’s her name?”

“Alice,” he answers and then swallows, “At least, it is now.”

Ianto shifts, rolling over to look at Jack, and seeing his clenched jaw causes something to twist in his chest, and he’s awake now, has been since Jack answered his first question, and he has to force himself to keep his tone light as he asks, “Torchwood?”

It’s an out, a chance to turn this into a light hearted, ‘bloody Torchwood’ moment, but Jack doesn’t take it. “Me. Her mother and I- We didn’t part on the best terms.”

Jack sounds impossibly lost now, like he had the day Ianto had asked him if he’d leave, go home if he could, and Ianto doesn’t know how to make it better, no matter how much he wants to. 

He reaches for Jack only for Jack to flinch, shaking his head. 

That hurts, in a way Ianto hadn’t expected, and his confusion only grows when Jack says, “Steven should be nearly six, now.”

It must show on his face, because Jack adds, “Her son,” and to anyone else, that might be a game changer, might finally be enough to make it clear that Jack Harkness is not someone easy to be with. 

However- Ianto isn’t easy to be with either, and he knows Jack, or knows Jack as well as he’ll let him, probably knows him better than Jack has realised, and he just nods. 

It’s another sign that he’s so much more than Jack’s ever figured out, and it’s also a test that he’s passed, but it’s also an out, not that Ianto takes it, not that Ianto has yet to ever take one when offered to him.

If he gave up that easily, he would have taken Retcon after London- After Lisa- After Brynblaidd. He would never have asked Jack into his bed, never have asked him there for a second time, never have gone out on that stupid date with him after they’d fixed the mess left by Jack’s ex. 

Really, it’s far too late for Ianto to let Jack go, and he’s fairly certain that he wouldn’t want to even if he could. 

Despite Ianto’s casual acceptance of, well, everything, it feels too tense between them, too twisted, and Jack feels too far away despite the mere inches of distance between them. Ianto doesn’t want to linger in the agony of the moment. 

“Not that much younger than David,” he says. He feels oddly like a diver leaping from a springboard without a pool to catch him. “They’d probably get along.”

The idea is so at odds with the private torture Jack’s still reliving that Jack makes a sound stuck somewhere between a laugh, a snort, and a question. It’s encouraging enough that Ianto continues, “Your grandson and my nephew. Game of football in the park. Weirder things have happened.”

Jack isn’t laughing and neither is Ianto, but it’s a close thing. When he does speak, Jack finally sounds less like he’s being burned alive. “Have they?”

“Where Torchwood is concerned, you know the answer is always yes.” It’s true, really, and, on the one hand Ianto means it, that the weirdest playdate he can imagine has nothing on what he can only imagine the Rift will next decide to gift them with, but the idea is still fucked up enough that Owen has more chance of developing a half-decent personality than it does of actually happening. 

When he voices this out loud, any pretence of not laughing Jack’s managing dies. Any remaining tension leaves him too, and Jack bridges the distance between the two of them, reaching for Ianto with an easy possessiveness that causes something in Ianto’s chest to ache. 

**

Ianto is not relaxed when he wakes on Sunday, not even momentarily. 

He gets no lie-in, doesn’t even get to sleep until his alarm goes off, and for once it’s not because Jack is terrible at understanding that everyone else in the world needs to sleep even if he doesn’t. It’s none of that, instead, he gets woken just after six by a horrible crashing sound followed by the piercing shout of, “Uncle Ianto?”

Jack bolts upright, the grim look on his face that says he hasn’t slept, not even the half hour he usually feigns, with his Webley in hand, and they share a look before Jack exhales shakily, lowering his gun with an air of reluctance Ianto recognises. His own heart is racing and he sits up slowly, reaching for Jack’s gun and putting it on the bedside table as he says, “David. It’s David. Not fairies.”

Not fairies, or weevils, or whatever bullshit Torchwood normally has them chasing after, and Ianto swallows hard, hoping for a moment that they’d both simply imagined the noise. 

“David,” Jack nods, and he casts a fleeting glance Ianto’s way before staring back at the door. “I might be wrong but that sounded like an adult might be required.” 

There’s another shout, sounding considerably more panicked this time, proving Jack right and Ianto wrong simultaneously, and when Ianto does not appear, David calls out again. “Jack? Uncle Ianto? It was an accident, I promise.” 

Those, Ianto thinks, might be the real magic words, because they have him reaching for the pyjama trousers he’d lost to the floor last night, pulling them on as he throws Jack’s t-shirt at him, and then he reconsiders, staring somewhat guiltily at Jack as he tries to think. “You- David can’t see you like this, you- You wait here, I’ll make sure that, I don’t know, he’s not dead or set a fire or something.” 

The uncomfortable stabbing sensation in his chest is back, and Ianto would like to pass it off as the panic and anxiety about David rather than any sort of self-reproach relating to Jack, but it’s a lie and he knows it. He has, however, had months of ignoring this feeling, of ignoring any sort of feelings that require long-term consideration, and so he gives Jack a weak smile before he heads for the kitchen, straight into the disaster David has caused. 

To his credit, the first thing Ianto asks is not, ‘What the fuck did you do?’, but, “Are you alright? You haven’t hurt yourself, have you?”

David is stood amongst the shattered remains of what used to be Ianto’s plates, and Ianto tries not to swear at the state of his kitchen and the sight of David stood surrounded by shards of crockery. 

“I’m sorry, really sorry, I didn’t mean to,” David babbles, and Ianto lets himself sigh. The lack of blood makes this a minor problem at most, and he tries to figure out the easiest way to clean this up. 

“Stay exactly where you are,” He tells David, and goes to grab a pair of shoes. When Ianto returns, he gingerly steps through the remains of what had been the cheap IKEA plates he and Lisa had picked out together - a compromise, new things bought when they couldn’t decide whose to keep and use and whose to throw away when they’d first moved in together - and picks David up, depositing him on the dining table where he stands, out of the way. 

“I’m really sorry, really,” David says again, and Ianto looks away from the pile of the largest shards he’d been collecting to nod. When David opens his mouth to apologise again, Ianto reaches for him, catching David’s arm with his hand and squeezing as gently as he can. “It’s okay - accidents happen, it’s fine.” 

David blinks then, and he looks so upset that Ianto wonders for a brief moment just how tightly Rhiannon runs things at home but before he can worry too much more, David throws himself at Ianto and Ianto is sort of _stunned_ for a long moment before he remembers to hug David back. 

**

“You know,” Jack says, “I’ve been on this planet an awfully long time.” 

“Which the records make clear, despite your best efforts,” Ianto returns. Despite the fact that he wears more hats for Torchwood than he can count, his first allegiance remains with his archives, and he knows the extent Jack has tried to tamper with them over the years. 

It demonstrates how badly off-the-rails Ianto’s life has gone that he doesn’t even blink at where the conversation’s heading, however, and he glances over at Jack, concerned, when there’s no snippy rejoinder. 

Instead, Jack looks serious, oddly serious for a man who, not two minutes earlier, was betting that David would eat more bread than the ducks they were ostensibly feeding. 

“I’ve been on this planet a long time,” he repeats, and something clenches in Ianto’s stomach. 

Sunday is less than half over, and already Ianto’s cleaned up two disasters in his flat, bought Mica and David another McDonalds’, reached Rhiannon’s voicemail, and done four laps of the same park they’d visited yesterday. He’s not sure he can handle anything else, not even a surprise Weevil sighting, let alone another of Jack’s secrets. 

The bad feeling in his stomach gets worse, though, because up until last week, getting anything that wasn’t superficial from Jack was harder than pulling teeth, and it’s that thought that forces Ianto to nod and turn to look at Jack properly. 

Mica and David have long since stopped paying them any attention, preferring to chase pigeons into the pond, and this makes it easier for him to listen as Jack says, “I know it’s not easy, letting people see who you really are - letting them see the truth, and I know it’s not always safe. You don’t ever have to tell your family about us Ianto, about me, because, believe me, I get it. But- It might be easier for you to afford them this one truth.” 

There’s one expression Jack has, one that Ianto’s only ever seen on Jack’s face when he’s dealing with the people damaged by Torchwood. Around people he’d like to fix- It’d been there when Tosh’s alien girlfriend had threatened to kill her. When Tommy had been stood back in his uniform coat, trying to be brave. Now, when Jack looks ever so bloody kind and sorry and sincere, and Ianto wants nothing more than for him to stop. 

It makes sense, of course, that Jack’s saying this; things have been building to this, even before this weird weekend playing happy families with his niece and nephew. 

Jack’s been edging ever closer to him, so that they’re stood shoulder to shoulder, and his hand reaches for Ianto’s, tangling their fingers together in way that must be so obvious to anyone who looks their way. Jack isn’t finished, it seems, and he says, “I mean it, really. You can never tell them I’m anything more than your boss or your friend, that’s fine. But- Torchwood is something they can’t know, and it’s enough of a secret. Me being your- This, us, your family knowing would make it a little easier when Rhiannon comes to collect the kids, right? Might clear up a few things for David and Mica, because it’s two bedroom flat, and they’re not stupid.” 

Ianto snorts at that, fairly, he feels, as the children in question are currently challenging each other as to who can fit more bread in their mouth, but he squeezes Jack’s hand tighter. He knows what he wants to say, sort of, but he can’t get the words out, not in any coherent way. “I want to tell them. About you. It’s just. Hard, I guess. Having someone I would want to tell them about. This is all- It’s not new, us, this, it isn’t, but it sort of is, Jack. To me- This- We’re- It’s new to me.”

And this is why, Ianto realises, Jack had begun all this by acknowledging he’d been around the block a few times, because he knows, and the look on his face says everything for him. 

It goes both ways, understanding, and Ianto’s stomach begins to hurt for a different reason. He’s still holding Jack’s hand and he likes it, even if he’s never going to be the biggest fan of PDA, and he doesn’t let go, not even when Mica marches up to them, complaining that David has eaten all of the bread. 

“It’s about time to go, anyway, so it’s not really a problem,” he says, sounding resolutely cheerful and not all like he wished he’d tried harder to ruin Rhiannon and Johnny’s wedding when he was sixteen and drunk, as he ushers David away from the pond, catching Mica’s hand with his free one and half-swinging her back and forth.

Ianto is well aware that he is yet to look at Jack, but actions speak louder than words even with Jack - or maybe especially - and he figures the gesture is big enough that Jack must know what it means. 

There is a moment where, tuning out from David’s near-constant chatter about seeing something in the pond that was neither a fish or a duck as they walk back to his flat, Ianto wonders whether it will actually be easier to introduce Rhiannon to Jack than to explain that he works for a secret branch of an extra-governmental organisation created to protect Earth from aliens, or if he’s got it the wrong way round. 

Rhiannon still lives on the estate where they grew up; Ianto knows for a fact that Weevils wouldn’t be out of place. Being bisexual, however? Not a chance anyone would actually understand. 

** 

Rhiannon calls at seven. 

Fumbling with his phone, Ianto does a strange sort of vault over his coffee table and slips into the kitchen to answer it. He does manage to curb his enthusiasm, sounding appropriately concerned as he asks, “Rhi? Everything alright?”

It’s a stupid question, but he can’t exactly come out and say, ‘please tell me you're on your way back now to collect your children so I can shag my boss like I’ve planned all weekend before we both go into work to hunt aliens tomorrow’, not at all, and not when Johnny’s dad has had a stroke. 

“Not really,” Rhiannon says, and Ianto goes cold. “Johnny’s dad didn’t- It’s. Johnny’s staying with his mum and sister, I’m going to take the kids up on Tuesday. Should be home soon, though, wanted to see them. Have you- You haven’t said anything, have you?”

Rhiannon sniffs loudly, and Ianto’s first thought is that she really shouldn’t be driving, and another of guilt that he hadn’t volunteered to drive David and Mica up to her, but he’s too used to this, too used to the bad news, and he squares his shoulders. “I haven’t told them about their grandad, no. Didn’t want to upset them, not when I didn’t know anything. I’ll get them ready, though, and you can come and pick them up whenever. Rhi- I’m. I’m so sorry.” 

The words feel empty - God knows Ianto hated hearing them after his dad died, and then again, from the few people who’d known Lisa, even if they didn’t know what he’d done - but Rhiannon manages a small noise of acknowledgement before she coughs loudly. Have you fed the kids? If you haven’t, don’t worry about it, just need to know if they’ve had tea.”

Ianto thinks to the debris still covering the kitchen, the evidence of yet another McDonalds’ still strewn about, the random plastic toys from Happy Meals sitting on the table, and hums. “I wouldn’t worry about dinner, Ja- I- I’ve already covered that.”

He feels cold then for an entirely different reason and spends the next twenty-seconds trying to interpret the silence coming from Rhiannon’s end of the call, if she caught his slip - stupid, ever so stupid - before he brushes past it with the determined efficiency of someone who had to uncuff Owen after finding him naked in the cells. “The kids will be ready, I’ll tell them you’re on your way. Be- Be safe driving, yeah?” 

Within ten minutes of hanging up, Ianto manages to get David and Mica into their coats and shoes, stood ready and waiting by his front door with their bedding and the bag of clothing sat by their feet. 

Okay, so Rhiannon doesn’t actually arrive for another twenty-minutes, but Ianto justifies it as a necessary precaution to save what’s left of his flat from destruction, and he doesn’t budge, not even when Mica points out that they’re missing another episode of The Simpsons. 

David is just reaching the mindlessly antagonising Mica stage of boredom when there’s a knock on the front door and Ianto jumps up from his spot on the floor a little too eagerly. He glances behind him to make sure the door to the living room - where Jack is still sat, the TV on some mindless conspiracy program - is closed before he opens it and lets Rhiannon in. 

He hasn’t actually seen her properly in months, four am yesterday notwithstanding, and he gives her a careful smile that she doesn’t quite manage to return. 

It’s understandable, and he chalks that and the fact that she doesn’t immediately start criticising his flat up to the stress of the last two days and the bad news that sits with her, obvious to anyone except her children, who throw themselves at her, clamouring and clinging to her like she’d left them to go to Mars, not Carmarthen. When Mica and David finally let her go, Rhiannon turns to him, pulling him stiffly into an awkward hug, and she sighs at Ianto when she lets him go. 

As disappointed in him as she seems, she also look grateful, resting one hand on the top of Mica’s head as she takes the bag of children’s clothing. “We really appreciate this, Johnny and me- Thank you.” 

“Any time.” Ianto rubs at the back of his neck, trying to find the words- “I know I’m-“

“Shit?” Rhiannon guesses, and he scowls at her. 

“Busy,” He corrects and hesitates, the words still lost. “I know I’m busy, but you’re my family. Whatever you need.” 

Ianto tries to remember the last time he and Rhiannon actually spoke like this, if ever. He’s acutely aware that the living room door has cracked open, and that Mica and David are shifting around, impatient and curious, and he tries for another smile that feels wrong, given the family emergency it’s taken to get his sister here. 

Rhiannon seems to understand, though, that he’s trying, and she nods, even as she ushers David and Mica towards the door. “Careful, or you might find you see a lot more of us. Your niece and nephew, especially.” 

“That might not be so bad,” Ianto allows, and he directs a smile down at Mica and David, though they’re already back to squabbling, hitting each other in what Ianto presumes they think is a casual, not glaringly obvious, manner. 

Their bickering is quelled by a single look from Rhiannon and she looks quickly exhausted again, though she raises an eyebrow at Ianto as if calling him on that instantly. When David reaches a hand out to poke Mica, she glares again and pushes the two of them further through the front door “Say goodbye, to Uncle Ianto, please. And thank him for looking after you.” 

There’s a beat of silence, and then another glare from Rhiannon before David looks up and mumbles what might possibly have been a ‘thank you’, and then Mica - looking suspiciously between David and her mum - barely forwards and tackles Ianto at the knee, wrapping her arms around him. ”Thank you.”

Something in Ianto hurts a little bit. In a good way. He gently pries her off and ducks down to hug her properly, all too aware of the look on Rhiannon’s face, and he gently tugs on Mica’s hair as he says, “It was lovely having you here. Both of you.”

The look Mica gives David as she pushes past him out the door is incredibly smug, but Ianto decides to let it fall under the column of Things That Are Definitely Not His Problem, and gives Rhiannon a small shrug when she looks like she’s reconsidering collecting her children. His serenity dies an abrupt death when Mica - halfway to the stairwell, dragging her duvet behind her like a cape - turns around and calls out, “Say bye to Jack!”

It might be Ianto’s imagination, but he thinks he hears the living room door slowly creak further open. Thinks, because for a moment, he can’t remember how to breathe, not when Rhiannon is looking up at him, no longer just exhausted but confused, and the question is written all over her face before she can even ask.

She does ask, though, because she’s his sister and because her children know something, someone she doesn’t. “Jack?” 

“My-“ There are many ways to end that sentence, but right now, Ianto can’t manage any one of them. He stalls again, unable to look Rhiannon in the eye but covering it by glancing around his hallway for anything David and Mica might have dropped. 

“He’s my-“ Ianto tries, swallowing hard and doing his best not to act like he’s done anything wrong. 

He hasn’t. He hasn’t, and he knows this, and he knows what he’d been considering but it’s too much. Right now, it’s too much, and it’s too soon. For him, and maybe for Rhiannon. Her father-in-law has just died. She’s got to take her children home, and then get ready to be there for her husband and his family, and Ianto can’t put anything else on her. He can’t. 

“He’s a friend,” He settles on, because it’s true too. He doesn’t dare glance back towards the living room, but he also can’t quite look Rhiannon in the eye. 

“A friend. Didn’t think you had any, not when you’re always working.” 

“We work together too. It’s why he was here, actually-“ It sounds weak, even to Ianto, even if it’s partially true, and he’s well aware of David’s renewed interest in their conversation, no longer scuffing his shoes along the ground but looking up between Ianto and Rhiannon like he knows something, something like Ianto holding Jack’s hand all the way home from the park. 

“Must be a good friend,” Rhiannon says, and it’s a trap. She’s tired, though, so when he nods, she sighs again and finally steps through the door after both of her children. She’s still his big sister, however, and she must know something else, something Ianto doesn’t know, because she adds, “As long as he is - good - that’s fine, I guess. I’d like to meet him. Sometime.” 

Relief, it turns out, is not the sight of Jack gasping back to life, or the cold weight of a gun in his hands, or Owen bitching over the comms. Ianto manages to meet Rhiannon’s gaze and he nods, again. “He’d like that, I think. I- I’d like that, yeah.” 

Rhiannon turns back then, stepping forward to pull Ianto into another hug, surprising him and then surprising him again. “You’re always going to be my brother, you idiot. No matter what you don’t tell me.” 

He coughs when she lets him go, but he knows Rhiannon sees through it. Apparently, she sees through everything, and a small part of Ianto wonders if she maybe, maybe knows that the civil servant tourism bullshit he’d told her before is exactly that. The thought of testing his ‘sexuality versus Weevils’ theory is officially a step too far, though, not that he ever, ever wants to think about how that would happen. 

She turns to go, ushering David along, and Ianto waits in the doorway, watching her take Mica’s hand as they reach the stairwell, only closing the door once they’re out of sight. He remembers to lock it, and then slumps against the wall, sliding down to the floor and staying there, even when the living room door swings open fully and Jack appears, leaning against the doorframe. 

They’re both quiet - the whole flat is quiet, suddenly, even with the TV on and the sounds of his neighbours - and when Ianto looks up at Jack, there’s a small smile on his face, masked by a more dangerous look of consideration. He doesn’t move, though, and doesn’t ask any of the things Ianto’s afraid he might. Instead, Jack asks, “Drink?”

“God, yes,” Ianto manages, and he forces himself up from the floor and into the living room where Jack already has two glasses and a bottle of wine waiting. 

**

Jack steals one more look at Ianto before he leans forward, freeing his right arm from when Ianto has been laying against him for the past hour, flexing his fingers a few times to try and restore blood flow before he reaches for the remote. 

Sometime after the first glass of wine, Ianto had lost patience with the WW2 documentary Jack had been watching - watching for the hell of correcting it - and he’d changed the channel to some crap reality TV show, only to promptly fall asleep before they’d even managed to get through half an episode. More out of knowing how Ianto would bitch about it if he woke up and Jack had changed the TV back than any desire to watch Pete Bennet win, he’d given it another forty-five minutes, but with Ianto solidly asleep, Jack gives up any pretence of interest in Big Brother and flicks back to the History Channel. 

The episode of _Secrets of World War 2_ he’d been watching is over, but it’s followed by three more, the latest of which is trying to claim that British Soldiers actually made a mode of transport out of barrage balloons. There’s a lot Jack would like to say on the matter, but Ianto is solid weight against his side and Jack doesn’t want to wake him. He’s peaceful, for once, and Jack likes it. 

He wonders, as the narrator describes recently declassified photos of one such voyage across London, if Ianto actually knows how often he has nightmares, or if they’re such a common occurrence, he’s become numb to them. 

Jack hadn’t been lying when he’d told Mica and David he didn’t sleep; he doesn’t, or at least not as often as everyone else needs to, and he’s watched too many of Ianto’s nightmares to want to disturb him, even if Ianto will give him hell later for letting him sleep on the sofa. Not just for letting him sleep on the sofa, Ianto will be pissed at him for letting him sleep period, but, as much as Jack had liked last night’s promise of _later_ , he can be a realist. 

Two days of entertaining the most high-spirited children Jack’s ever known has left him wondering how Ianto hadn’t fallen asleep immediately after getting back from the park, let alone managed another five hours before Rhiannon returned. Three of those five hours had included refereeing an argument that had devolved into a fight rivalling most WWE matches, if pillows could be substituted for metal chairs, and Jack is still wondering how Mica had managed to win. 

Jack’s halfway through a documentary about the apparent recent discovery of a sunken Nazi U-boat containing missing treasure when Ianto wakes, or at least wakes enough to realise what Jack’s watching. “Turn that crap off, for fuck’s sake.” 

Half of the treasure they ‘found’ looks more like abandoned heirloom china and bad landscape paintings, and the presenter has been rambling on about the displacement of the boat from its intended destination by Allied spies. Jack switches to the news, smothering a smile as Ianto struggles upright, glaring at him. “I can’t believe you let me fall asleep in front of the TV like some old man.” 

Jack manages not to roll his eyes and the small flare of annoyance he feels at Ianto’s scowl dies out of sympathy as he watches Ianto try to work out the crick in his neck. He retrieves the glass of wine he’d rescued after Ianto had fallen asleep from the floor, offering it up as an apology. 

Ianto takes it, grudgingly settling back against the sofa and the warm space at Jack’s side. He decides the news is dull - another interview with the old Prime Minister, Harriet something - and switches back to the History Channel, resolutely not looking at Jack even as he leans comfortably against him, letting his free hand settle casually on Jack’s thigh. 

**

“Good weekend?” Tosh asks, wandering into Jack’s office. 

She’s the first one in, apart from Jack and Ianto, early as their routine and both their positions demand, and she stops in the doorway, leaning against the door. Jack had watched her walk in on the CCTV, an old habit, and he looks up at her with a smile. She’s smiling too, and he catches the coffee mug in her hand, already empty after Ianto had left it fresh on her desk a few minutes after she’d arrived. 

“Yeah,” Jack says, catching sight of Ianto as he wanders into view, “Yeah, it was. You? Not too busy here, I hope.” 

**Author's Note:**

> i'd love to see what you guys thought, leave me a comment? 
> 
> i'm also on tumblr as @thestarsarewinning , feel free to come and say hi <3


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